A Review of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos."

With the end of the Bush neocon years, the PepperSpray video collective has embarked on a series of programs addressing this question: What is the Current Situation and Our Tasks Ahead?

We have been interviewing leaders on the left, getting their perspectives on this critical question, and in the near future we will be bringing you the thoughts of some very thoughtful people.

A generation ago there arose on PBS a 13-part TV series called Cosmos. It was the brainchild of Carl Sagan; astronomer and astrobiologist, a giant among scientists, a leader in a movement of science for the people.

As Americans throw off the burden of many years of right-wing, anti-science politics, part of getting back on the road forward is to get our bearings, to base our social and political movements on scientific understanding rather than on right-wing dogma.

What better way to chart the road forward for humanity, than to start at the beginning, as Carl Sagans Cosmos series did.

This week we devote the entire show to a review of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos."

There is no way we can do justice to the 13 hour series in a half hour show, but we did manage to tease out a few good parts to pique your appetite for more. We want people to go to their library or video source and get the whole 13 part series and watch them all.

You will be amazed. Global warming, which is getting a lot of attention now, was detailed on that 1980 series. Yes, long before Al Gore's movie, Carl Sagan was trying to get a message from the scientists to the people about the dangers that face humanity and the world we live on.

According to NASA, "Cosmos" holds the world-wide record for the most watched PBS series ever.

It is a history of science that details the efforts of those who challenged established ideas, and even their own closely held beliefs, to discover important breakthroughs for humanity.

Many of the gains of the human species are also linked, in Sagans view, with the free exchange of ideas.

In Cosmos we learn that tradition, along with political and religious tyranny, often held back--or worse, set back--human achievement, while freedom of thought, speech, and association moved our species forward.

In 1980, the techniques used to create the "Cosmos" series were ground-breaking (blue screen sets and clever models, coupled with Hubble photos). Now, almost 30 years later, the effects seem primitive, but the science stands, and the message is as fresh as morning coffee.

In the intervening years we have seen a rise in the rabid right, in religious fundamentalism and the last gasp of creationists. Now, with the back of the neocons broken, it feels like spring, and our own personal renaissance after a generation-long dark age.

There is no better way to get our collective heads screwed on right than to start with where we left off, almost 30 years ago, "Cosmos."

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